Education
Trinity College.
player mathematician university professor
Trinity College.
As a mathematician he is best known for his part in the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture relating algebraic properties of elliptic curves to special values of L-functions, which was developed with Bryan Birch during the first half of the 1960s with the help of machine computation, and for his work on the Titan operating system. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Master of Street Catharine"s College and vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1979 to 1983. From 1983 he was Chairman of the University Grants Committee and then from 1989, Chief Executive of the Universities Funding Council.
He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1967 and was a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1987.
In 2006 he was awarded the Sylvester Meda Swinnerton-Dyer was, in his younger days, an international bridge player, representing the British team twice in the European Open teams championship.
In 1953 at Helsinki he was partnered by Dimmie Fleming (the only occasion a woman has played in the British Open team): the team came second out of fifteen teams. In 1962 he was partnered by Ken Barbour.
The team came fourth out of twelve teams at Beirut.
He was also a strong chess player and in matches represented Cambridge University on top board. In 1981, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath.
Royal Society.
